Journal of Public Economics · 2026 · Krishna Srinivasan、Justin Valasek、Weijia Wang
中文摘要
为应对不断上升的收入不平等，政府通常依赖两种政策杠杆：预分配政策在收入获得之前实施不平等削减——例如最低工资法；再分配政策在收入获得之后实施不平等削减——例如税收与转移支付。我们探究对削减不平等的支持是否取决于政策杠杆的选择。基于在美国和瑞典普通人群中开展的激励性实验（N = 2510），我们研究预分配与再分配下的不平等削减，重点关注不平等削减是在收入获得之前还是之后实施。我们发现时点很重要：两国被试在预分配下比在再分配下更多地削减不平等。此外，预分配处理组的被试更常援引努力均等来为削减不平等辩护，而再分配处理组的被试更常援引遵守初始协议来为维持不平等辩护。总体而言，我们的结果表明，预分配与再分配之间的选择可能影响公众对削减不平等的支持。
Abstract
To address rising income inequality, governments typically rely on two levers: predistribution policies that implement inequality reduction before incomes are earned—e.g., minimum-wage laws—and redistribution policies that implement inequality reduction after incomes are earned—e.g., taxes and transfers. We explore whether support for reducing inequality depends on the choice of policy lever. Using incentivized experiments with the general population of the US and Sweden ( N = 2510 ), we study inequality reduction under predistribution and redistribution, focusing on whether inequality reduction is implemented before or after income is earned. We find that timing matters: subjects in both countries reduce inequality more under predistribution than redistribution. Furthermore, subjects in the predistribution treatment more often invoke equal effort to justify reducing inequality, while those in the redistribution treatment more often invoke adherence to the initial agreement to justify preserving it. Overall, our results imply that the choice between predistribution and redistribution can influence public support for reducing inequality.